Aslan

I've been reading C.S. Lewis lately. I picked up The Screwtape Letters on a lark--from a 10-year old at a yardsale, no less. Also by chance, I happened to have taken Mere Christianity from my parents house years ago, and (chance heaped upon chance) to have kept it with me through various moves.

Reading it this morning, I came across the following passage: "People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bagain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing.'" This is the most humorous reference to hell I've ever seen.

More important, though, is that it contradicts Christianity as generally presented (by crazy old men in subway stations with pamphlets) in that it assumes "keeping rules," or acting morally, will be sufficient to earn the fare for Charon's Ferry (or whatever). After all, I've been informed, ad nauseam, that salvation comes from "the gift of God— not by works." Ephesians 2:8-9.

So why not live like a bandit? The rub, at least as C.S. explains it, comes thusly: You can't accept this gift unless you have conditioned yourself to receive it. C.S. compares it to the creation of a statue out of stone. Each stroke of the hammer and chisel forms you into either a creature worthy of accepting the proffered gift, or ... not.

Which makes sense. Pretty obvious, really.

So why'd I have to go through two C.S. Lewis books and 27 years to grasp this basic tenet of Christian theology?

Dumbening

The level of public discourse in America has gotten disappointingly low. The response to such a realization, I suppose, must be to try to raise it through some personal contribution. That being more than somewhat beyond me, allow me to endeavor to prove the fact of its occurrence through someone who would presumably feel up to the challenge.

Today's Ann Coulter gives us this gem of a sentiment: "Conason's feeble litany of harebrained predictions reads like a haiku of bum steers." It's hard to imagine a more clumsy effort at invective, isn't it? And this from the Queen of Vitriol.

Compare: "That men should take up arms, and spend their lives and fortunes, not to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have not rights, is an entirely new species of discovery, and suited to the paradoxical genius of Mr. Burke." Thomas Paine, commenting on an attack on the French Revolution by a member of the British Parliament.

It would be reassuring if I could say the issues facing us today were less weighty than in the past...

In A New York Minute

Addiction and escapism are not solely the province of alcoholism and heroin. And to prove this insightful and pithy statement, I give you West Wing Marathon Mondays. Untold numbers of Democrats watch, weekly, and they watch for reasons beyond mere entertainment: They watch for the dream of what could have been.

Alright. That's a bit unlikely.

But they watch in the hopes of what might be. If it weren't so divorced from reality it might be endearing. But Martin Sheen is not the President.

And you can't stand an egg on it's head during the equinox.